


Comings Ang Goings And All The Things In Between

by lisachan



Series: Leoverse [219]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 14,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: A compilation of Timmy and Alex moments in different times, places and universes.





	1. Melancholy

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a spin-off sequel for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that, despite not being properly set after BHS (but that's only because BHS is probably never going to have a proper ending and we'll keep talking about these people forever), it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.
> 
> Written for this year's LDF October challenge, [Leaftober](https://www.landedifandom.net/leaftober-2019/)

Last time Alex was here, he was eighteen, and Timmy and him were still together. By the end of August, as Timmy prepared to leave Florence after the summer they’d spent together, he had managed to gather all his courage and confront him. After five years of that life, coming alive in the Summer and disappearing for the rest of the year until Timmy came visiting again, Alex was ready to know what came next. He couldn’t bear to think Timmy would go back being Tana’s boyfriend again until she managed to find yet another reason to break up with him – not again, not this time.

So he put him in front of a crossroad. Either you choose me or you get lost. And Timmy chose him, and for a few days which then turned into a few weeks everything worked fine, and Alex was happy. Timmy invited him over to Lima for a few days before school was back on in Florence, and Alex followed him like lyrics follow the melody of a song.

Then, while in Lima, he could see Timmy and Tana together. The way Timmy’s eyes followed her around like regret always follows people who make bad choices in life. She was the first thing he had ever wanted and no matter what happened in his life, the people he’d meet and the places he’d see, she’d always be that. That one thing that he would never truly possess.

That was more than Alex was prepared to accept. He could accept Timmy’s history and he could accept not being his first love, but he couldn’t accept being with a man who would always look another woman with those eyes, a man who would always identify another person with the very idea of ideal love.

So he was the one breaking it off with him. Three days after flying to Lima, he was back on a plane, headed back to Florence. He never saw Timmy again. Never even spoke with him again. He blocked him on the phone before landing, he chose not to attend any reunion between his family and his own. Presented with the choice of moving to New York to attend Parsons for his fashion degree or stay in Florence and attend Polimoda, he chose the latter, just to keep the distance between himself and the land Timmy’s feet were walking.

It’s been ten years since the last time he saw him, and today Timmy’s there, waving at him with a sad smile on his face at the arrival’s in Cleveland airport, and Alex is overcome with emotion, and all of them are drowned in melancholia, and he feels like crying. He hasn’t cried in such a long time. He doesn’t even know if he still has tears. Maybe they all dried out the last time he cried for him.

He walks the distance between himself and his ex boyfriend. He feels like his voice would break if he talked, so he chooses not to. Timmy extends his arms and wraps them around him, and he’s so warm, and the soft coat he’s wearing smells like him, and he smells like grass and open skies and upcoming winter, and Alex wants to cry again, and maybe he does, a little.

“I’m so glad you came,” Timmy says. His voice is breaking too.

He just got divorced. And once again Alex wanders – what’s going to happen next? And this time he’s not so sure he’s ready to know.


	2. Rainy day

It rarely ever rains in Florence in the summer, but when it does, fuck, you better get yourself a boat, because the streets will turn into a river and you will be washed away. Whether it’s Arno river overflowing or rainwater pooling up due to bad sewage, Timmy doesn’t know and he doesn’t even really care, what he knows is he’s completely drenched, he can’t see his feet underwater and he’s not even sure he still has his shoes on, and Alex is cursing in Italian using words so bad he doesn’t even need to understand the language to grasp the gravity of them.

“Babe,” he says, holding his hand out for him while Alex takes off his jacket, completely ruined and actually, it seems, coming apart in his hands as he tears it off himself, “Don’t get so angry. It will be over soon.”

“Yeah, well, it’s already too late,” Alex growls, throwing the ruined jacket in the literal trash, “I had sewn that fucking jacket by myself. Myself! It was all done in recycled vintage fabrics, the black lace inserts were original early 19th century!”

“I’m… sorry about that?”

“Oh, God, don’t say you’re sorry!” Alex throws his arms up in the air and his drenched puffy sleeves let out such a powerful sprinkle of water, as they move, that the droplets draw an arch in the rain before disappearing within it, “You don’t even understand that importance of it! What do you even know about 19th century lace? Do you know that it’s virtually impossible to find it because the last few scraps are either in no usable conditions or worth more than a thousand euros? Do you even have an idea how long I had to save to buy that lace?!”

“Whoa-- hey, calm down,” Timmy frowns, stopping in the middle of the deserted sidewalk and crossing his arms on his chest, “So what if it costs a couple thousand bucks, I’ll get you some more, you’ll do the jacket again.”

“I can’t do it again, it was a unique piece!” Alex screams again, and this time something in Timmy’s mind clicks, and he gets it.

He moves closer to Alex and puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it softly as the sky seems to fall down in transparent, wet crumbs all around them. “Babe,” he whispers, “What’s the matter?”

Alex stops shaking with rage, and now that they’re closer Timmy can tell that some of those droplets on his face are rain, and some others are not. “August is almost finished,” he says, “Soon it’ll be over.”

“I know, baby.”

“And you’ll leave.”

“I know, baby.” Timmy sighs too, and wraps his arms around him, “I’m sorry.”

“It was supposed to be a nice day,” Alex whimpers furiously in his ear.

Timmy chuckles, squeezing him a little harder. “It’ll be a nice rainy one, then.”


	3. Reddish

“I don’t understand,” Timmy says confusedly, holding the baby in his arms with so much care one who’d think her to be made of painted glass instead than flesh and bones, “Why is she a redhead?”

Blaine blinks rapidly and looks at him in complete shock, opening and closing his lips a few times before finally managing to get some actual words out of his mouth. “What I don’t understand is that your boyfriend just gave birth to a baby and what you don’t understand is how is she a redhead.”

“Well, he’s dark-haired, I’m blonde, I mean--”

“He’s a boy, he’s not supposed to be giving birth!”

“Dad,” Timmy growls, rolling his eyes, “That topic grew old nine months ago.”

“No, that topic will never grow old because now, exactly like nine months ago, this is still physically impossible and inexplicable.”

“What I meant is we’re all very aware of how incredible this is, but we’ve had enough time to accept this was eventually going to happen, right? Didn’t we? Nine months are certainly long enough to--”

“Nine months could never be long enough to accept a male pregnancy, and they weren’t!”

“Blaine, dear, let it go, we got you can’t wrap your head around this,” Leo pushes him away and finally stands in front of Timmy, staring down at the baby girl nestled in his arms, “...God, she really is a redhead. This makes so little sense.”

“No, it makes none, and is it really the thing that makes the less sense, her hair color?!” Blaine almost yells, throwing his arms up in the air, and that’s when another voice adds itself to the scene, and everyone turns around and sees Pete standing in front of the door, and things get even less clear.

“It is, actually,” the guy says, walking into the room and standing next to Leo. He keeps his eyes glued to the baby too, with a look so intense everyone present can almost feel its temperature, “Her hair color is the only thing that makes sense about her.”

Leo swallows, looking up at his friend. “Pete,” he says with a shaky voice, “Why are you saying that? And why the hell are you here?”

Pete sighs, covering his eyes for a second. “I think we better take a sit. We’ve got some talking to do,” he says, throwing a meaningful look at Leo.

Leo’s eyes grow wide and he holds his breath for a second. “This can’t be,” he whispers, “Does this have anything to do with your people?”

“His people?” Timmy frowns, confusedly, “Canadians?”

Leo shakes his head, looking suddenly unhealthily pale. “Pete is not really from Canada, powder puff,” he says.

“...oh, no,” Blaine whimpers, “Don’t tell me. Is this another universe fuck-up?”

No one notices that, while they were chatting, Alex finally woke up from his brief, exhausted sleep. “What are you crazy people talking about?” he frowns confusedly, “Timmy. Give me my daughter back,” he says.

As Timmy walks back to the bed and places the baby back in his other father’s arms, Blaine decides he needs a drink and Pete and Leo sits down on the empty chairs nearby.

“Now listen closely,” Pete says, “You’re not gonna like this.”

“I just gave birth,” Alex frowns, “And I don’t have a vagina. You can’t even imagine the depths of my not liking shit. Hit me with your worst.”

And Pete does.


	4. The Goddess

Timmy never believed in the Goddess, but as his father always told him there would be a time of need in which he’d have nothing else to turn to, and then he’d believe.

Well, now he’s got nothing and no one else to turn to. It’s time for him to believe, because if not even the Goddess can put a stop to his wife leaving him, no one else can.

Sure, Timmy knows – rationally, he knows – that he shouldn’t be turning to prayers to force Tana to stay. She doesn’t believe in the Goddess either, she believes she’s just a girl a bunch of priests put on a throne to keep the people happy and compliant, and to justify their every decision claiming it came from a source higher than themselves, higher than them all, and Timmy honestly believes the same, but he’s desperate. Tana wants to travel the world, she wants to experience life in a different way, she wants to put herself on the line, see new things, meet new people, and he most definitely doesn’t, and she’s all he ever wanted, together with his little piece of land, in his entire life, if she goes then he’s got nothing.

So the Goddess must help him. If there’s anything at all that she can do, Timmy hopes it’s that.

He gets to the Sanctuary, and he tries to get in but of course it’s not Praising Hours, so he’s bumped at the door. Apparently, the Goddess is now taking a purifying bath and can’t see any worshiper. The guards tell him to step back and get lost, he insists on wanting to come in and they insist too, in keeping him out, and in the end he decides to walk away before they turn their threats to arrest him into reality. He can’t get arrested – the prison is too far from here. He simply has to find another way in.

He circles the building. There are windows two stories up, he could slip in through one of them. He just needs to understand how to actually get up there.

It’s not easy and he’s aware of the fact that he might be risking his life, but he’s risking it either way: if he chooses not to risk dying by climbing these walls, he’s risking dying anyway if Tana leaves and breaks his heart.

So he climbs. He climbs up and he never looks down, never looks back. Stone after stone, he scratches his palms and fingers and breaks all his nails, but he gets there. He gets to the window. He crawls inside and lands on his back on the floor, growling in pain, hoping no one heard the thud his limp body made as it fell to the ground.

To hell with the Goddess’ bath, he’s got something important to ask her, and he will ask her, be that the last thing he does, even if she has to hide her naked body underneath her soapy foams while he does that.

What happens, though, comes completely unexpected.

Standing in the water, completely naked, there’s not the deity he was expecting. There’s a boy, instead, dark straight wet hair framing an angular, stern and pale face, icy cold blue eyes piercing him mercilessly as he faces him without shame. His skin glitters and Timmy wonders if that’s magic or just water.

“Who are you?” he whispers, surprised.

“Who am I?” the boy frowns, upset, “I’m your fucking Goddess, asshole. Who the hell are you?”

Timmy swallows as his eyes grow wide. This believing thing might be even more complicated than he thought.


	5. Summer has come and passed

Summer has come and passed, and like every other time Timmy’s gone, and Alex feels alone. Now, he’s perfectly aware of two very meaningful facts: first, he’s not really alone, he’s got friends and classmates and school is going to be starting again soon, and he won’t have time to brood about Timmy any longer comes September 15th; second, this is temporary: right now it feels like he’s never going to feel as elated and happy as he felt whenever his eyes met Timmy’s while he was still here, or whenever his hands touched his body and his lips met his own, but he knows his life isn’t over just because a boy’s gone – and frankly, he’s better than this, he’s not the kind of person who would let himself be defeated by a pair of pretty butt cheeks walking out of sight and climbing up a ladder to fly off back to the USA.

Still, he’s annoyed and gloomy. The weather’s starting to turn, out in the countryside the air is colder at night, he doesn’t feel like partying around like he used to and he’s got too much time on his hands still to stop his mind from running in circles around missing him so damn much.

When he feels like that, the only thing that helps a little is porn. He usually lies down on his bed, clicks on the hamster-faced shortcut for xhamster.com on his Chrome opening tab and finds some amateurish enough video starring a fit blonde guy he can think of as Timmy’s secret sex tape, and then jerks himself off into oblivion. That’s less depressing and more empowering than staring at the WhatsApp chat hoping he’ll write, anyway. And it’s feels better too.

This time, though, something different happens. He’s about to click the hamster when a notification with Timmy’s name on it pops up on his phone screen, and his heart skips a beat because the preview of the text showed him something he’s not sure he got right.

So he opens WhatsApp and carefully stares at the picture Timmy just sent him, and he finds out that yes – he got that right alright.

That’s a dick pic.

He swallows, looking at it. The perfect shape, the girth, how the shaft curves a little upwards towards the tip. Timmy put a hand at the base of it and its presence gives Alex some context to compare dimensions and come up with an ideal length that makes his mouth all watery.

“Hey,” the text accompanying the picture says, “Missing you. Miss me too?”

Alex looks down at his own crotch – and at the swelling there. “Definitely,” he writes, and then pushes his pants down and takes a picture of his own cock, to send back.

Timmy takes his time to answer. Minutes pass and Alex’s heart beats so fast and hard his chest starts hurting, but this whole thing feels so good that all the pain, past, present and possibly future too, completely disappears, becomes irrelevant, inconsequential. 

“Damn,” Timmy finally texts back, “Calling you in 5.”

Alex bites at his bottom lip and tries to suppress an indecent squeal from escaping his throat, and when, five minutes later, Timmy’s live picture appears on his phone, half naked, hard and ready to jerk off together with him despite the ocean separating them, he still has no idea how he moved so suddenly from the deepest pit of teenage angst he had ever dove down to the highest peak of adolescent elation he ever experienced in his life, but one thing he knows for sure – this is so much better than xhamster.com, and he definitely loves it.


	6. Howling wind

Timmy’s four, and Blaine decided it’s time for his first hunt. His word is supposed to be law, and Adam’s been insisting with the cub to try and convince him to turn for an hour, now, but Blaine can be packmaster all he wants – his authority just isn’t as strong as it’s supposed to be if he’s the first who doesn’t want to leave his companion’s side as he gives birth.

Cody’s never been pregnant before. To be honest, none of them even knew he could – his physiognomy was already peculiar enough, what with him being half-wolf and an omega too, without having to add hermaphroditism too. And yet, there we are, with Cody lying down on the bed with a belly the size of the moon and Blaine and Leo kneeling on each side of his bed, terrified out of their wits, wondering if he can even survive giving birth.

No wonder Timmy’s frightened. No wonder the idea of going out hunting, an idea that did nothing but excite him up to a month before, feels dreadful right now.

“Timmy,” Adam sighs deeply, while the child keeps pacing the room on his chubby legs, “This is useless, do you realize that? Cody will be fine, your dad will protect him. You can’t help, even if you stay. Let’s go. The rest of the pack is waiting and your dad decided you should hunt tonight.”

“No,” Timmy says stubbornly, “I don’t want to. Cody is huge. The baby is coming.”

“And you can’t help him by walking around the room like that!” Adam insists, “At least if you come out with me and hunt you’ll burn some of that excess energy. We’ll be back by first light and by then, you’ll see, the baby will be--”

“It’s here,” Timmy suddenly stops in the middle of the room, his rounded nose pointing upwards, curling slightly. “It’s here!”

Adam smells the air and opens his eyes wide. He smells blood and something else – something he can’t recognize, but that Timmy immediately recognized. The smell of his kin.

“...alright,” he says, trying to calm Timmy down, “Still. Let’s go hunt. You’ll see the baby in the morning, I promise.”

“No,” Timmy shakes his head, “I wanna see it now.”

“Well, you can’t.”

“I wanna see it now!”

“I’m not letting you out of this room unless it is to go hunt, Timothy! Are we clear on that?”

Timmy stares at him, defiantly, and then sighs, his tiny shoulders dropping a little. “Fine,” he surrenders, “Let’s go.”

But the moment Adam opens the door he obviously runs off in the opposite direction, straight to his father’s apartments.

“Shit--” Adam curses, following him, but the kid is agile, fast, he slides underneath the tables, passes all corners with such narrow turns Adam wonders how it’s possible that he doesn’t end up smashing his face against each and every wall. “Timmy!” he calls out, “Your dad will be angry! He will eat you!” he threatens him, but Timmy doesn’t care, he doesn’t even listen. The smell is calling him, and he must run. The newborn baby exerting over him a magnetism not even the thrill of the hunt can compare with.

When the cub finally stops in front of the closed door, that’s when Adam manages to reach him. The kid brings both fists to the door and bangs. “Dad!” he yells, “Open up!”

“Jesus-- Timmy, you’ll make him angry!” Adam grabs him by his wrists and pulls him back, just in time, moments before Blaine comes out of the room. He’s got a baby in his arms, wrapped in a blood-stained white towel. The baby gurgles softly and Blaine looks exhausted. There’s blood on his face, blood on his teeth.

“His name’s Alex,” he says, handing the baby to Adam. Then, the moment he’s not holding him anymore, he leans back against the wall and exhales. “Adam,” he says weakly, “Go call Sam. I had to bite the baby out of him.”

Adam pales up and holds his breath for a second. He mechanically turns towards Timmy and tries to ignore the fact that now that he’s so close to the room he can hear Leo crying and Cody wheezing softly just on the other side of the door. “Timmy,” he says, “I need you to sit down on that armchair.”

“Why?” the kid looks up at him, unconvinced, “I wanna see the baby.”

“I need you to sit down so I can let you see him well,” Adam nods, and Timmy’s face lightens up. The child complies right away, sitting tidily on the armchair, ready to meet his brother. Adam brings it to him and places him down on his legs. “Here, hold him like this,” he says, arranging Timmy’s arms around the baby’s body. “This here is your little brother, Timmy. His name’s Alex. You must protect him, always. And you must protect him now, while I go call auntie Sam. So make sure you don’t let him fall. Okay?”

The kid nods absent-mindedly, his eyes unfocused, lost on the baby’s blood-covered face. He doesn’t hear Adam’s voice any longer. He doesn’t hear Leo crying, he doesn’t hear Cody slowly fading. He doesn’t hear his father whimper and then growl furiously, and he doesn’t even hear Sam when she rushes back with Adam, shouting orders right and left, trying to assess the situation and find a way to fix what’s been broken.

The wind out of the window is howling. And there’s a voice howling inside of his mind too. And his brother’s silent voice howls the same way.


	7. Cold feet

Alex knows himself as a pretty brave person. He started wearing skirts knowing he wasn’t supposed to when he was five, he punched his first bully in elementary school, he kissed a boy publicly for the first time when he turned thirteen and he got his first piercing way before any of his same age friends could even think about wanting one, and even though it hurt like a motherfucker he didn’t even shed one single tear.

Yet, this frightens him – even though not for the reason it frightens the rest of his friends.

Timmy stands on all fours on top of him, his hair a mess, his eyes dirty with lust, his lips red and wet with kisses. Alex was biting those lips up to a second before. He was clinging to those naked, broad shoulders, he was drinking sweat in drops from his chest, drawing translucent lines around his nipples with his tongue.

Then Timmy grabbed him with a strength Alex couldn’t recognize. He threw him on his back on the mattress and mounted on top of him, he leaned in and whispered on his lips - “I want to fuck you so hard, sweetness” - and every single cell inside Alex’s body started chanting a unanimous choir of yes.

But when Timmy pushed down his pants and wore a condom, when he spit on his hand and made his erection slick and lubed for him, when he tried to put his cock inside him, he couldn’t fit, and Alex’s heart sank at the bottom of his stomach, down a pit he wasn’t sure he could fish it out of again, and that’s when doubt started nagging at him.

What if I can’t do this? What if he can’t fuck me? What if we try and try and it never works and he gets bored of me and finally decides to let me go?

Timmy gets up on his knees and smiles sadly at him, stroking his cheek. “Don’t worry, sweetness, it happens,” he says, even though his eyes are saying _but why is it happening to us?_, “It’ll work next time.”

Hoping there _is_ a next time, Alex thinks, feeling so cold he might as well be dead.

He turns on his side, hiding his face against the pillow. “Could you turn the light off, please?” he whispers, his voice muffled by the fabric.

“Oh,” Timmy says. He sounds surprised by the reaction, perhaps even hurt. “Sure. Okay.”

He stands up from the bed and walks heavily to the light switch, turning it off.

His weight leaving the bed feels exactly like the darkness surrounding them.


	8. Gone till November

“When is it you’re coming?” Timmy asks, his lips glued to the skin of Alex’s throat.

“If you keep touching me like that,” Alex whimpers, moving slowly against his hand, “In three seconds.”

Timmy laughs breathlessly, closing his hand in a fist around Alex’s cock and stroking him harder for a second, clearly pleased with his voice and the words he said. “Silly,” he whispers, kissing a wet line from his shoulder to his ear, “I meant to Lima. You’re planning a trip for the fall, right?”

“For Halloween, specifically,” Alex moans, throwing his head back and resting it against Timmy’s shoulder, “Oh, God, don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” Timmy glues himself to him, Alex’s back adheres to his chest and he can feel his muscles, his strength and, most of all, his powerful erection, pressed against his own ass despite the rough denim overall trapping it. “But you’re gonna be visiting your grandparents for Halloween, right?”

“Yeah...” Alex moans again and reaches back with one of his hands, placing it on the small of Timmy’s back, keeping him closer and inviting him to move against him while, with his other arm, he circles his neck and puts a hand on his nape, making sure he’s as close as he can possibly get without melting into one body, “But I’ll come visit you too, I promise.”

“When?”

“I don’t know,” Alex groans and looks down, staring fascinatingly at his own cock disappearing and reappearing in and out of Timmy’s big hand, “November the 1st, as soon as I manage to get out of my grandparents’ house, I swear.”

Timmy grins, licking his neck and pressing himself against him so hard Alex can feel the shape of his cock against his own butt cheek. “What if I can’t wait until then?” he asks teasingly.

Alex growls and suddenly turns around, grabbing Timmy’s face in his hands and giving him a furious kiss, before he starts fumbling with his overall, trying to get it off him. “Then you better make the most of it while we’re still living in the same house,” he says.

Timmy nods, and grabs him by his hips, swiftly sitting him up on his desk.

He might be gone from tomorrow till November, but today he’s still here, so he better not waste any time.


	9. Harvest

They’re harvesting grapes right now at the farm, and the whole place is a mess of regular workers and seasonal ones running up and down while all the animals, surprised and confused by the crowds, voice their discontent loudly enough it feels like Animal Farm around here these days, so of course Timmy thought this would be the best time to have school kids over and do his yearly round of educational farming.

That’s what Timmy always does. He loves to be the center of the attention and he loves it even more when he can be the center of the attention in the midst of a hurricane. So he makes sure he has the most people watching him as he single-handedly manages a thousand acres farm in the most chaotic period that same farm has to go through during an average year.

One one side, Alex hates that about him. He hates how fucking smug Timmy gets when he manages to pull it off and he hates that, to pull it off, he has to spend so much time away from him.

On the other side, he’s so damn sexy while he does it, smiling dashingly at ten years old kids as he explains them the mysteries of his job while he orders harvesters around and calms the squealing, hysteric piglets with the imposition of his single right hand, that Alex doesn’t even mind. 

Anger passes, arousal too, but only one of these feelings gets a juicy reward at night.


	10. Back to school

Timmy’s been gone for a week, and Alex already misses him like he would miss oxygen on Mars. Sometimes it’s hard to even get out of the bed in the morning – he keeps wondering what good will come to him if he’s a good kid, goes to school, does his homework, comes back home early after a night out with his friends and all the rest. What kind of reward could life have in store for him, if it can’t be delivered by Timmy’s warm, rough hands?

Getting through classes is the hardest thing he has to do, these days, especially math. He’s a lucky kid, fashion school lets him attend much less scientific classes than any other high school would, but he doesn’t click with numbers, they mean nothing to him, and sixty minutes of them only make him want to sleep. In his dreams, at least, Timmy’s still here.

He’s trying to keep his eyes open as professor Lentini tries and get through his and his classmates’ thick heads what a logarithmic inequality is, when he hears something sounding like a stone getting thrown at his window, and when he turns around he sees that someone _is_, actually, throwing stones at his window, caring exactly nothing about the fact that it is forbidden and getting caught would certainly lead him, if not to prison, to a hard fifteen minutes with principal Innocenti.

He can’t believe his eyes, though, when he sees who this person actually is.

He stands up right away, throwing one of his arms up. “Professor Lentini, devo andare in bagno!” he yells out loud, while the whole classroom starts laughing.

Professor Lentini looks at him with his eyes wide open, trying to read something on his blushing cheeks. “Meno entusiasmo, Petersen, o ci faremo tutti un’idea sbagliata di quello che vai a fare,” the man says, but he gestures him out of the classroom anyway.

Alex nods and a catapult wouldn’t have been able to send him flying out the classroom door faster than his springing legs. He slams the door behind himself and throws himself down the stairs, risking to slip and break his neck. The risk is worth it, he thinks, if running like this manages to get him in Timmy’s arms faster.


	11. Brewing tea

“I have no idea what made you think I would like this place,” Timmy makes a face as they enter the Sakuramori, the new tea house that just opened a couple blocks from the fancy place where Bran’s house is. “I hate tea.”

“I know that,” Bran smiles and his smile is dangerous. He’s always been like that, since the first time Timmy and him met in kindergarten: Bran would start something, he would ask Timmy to do it with him, Timmy would say no and in the end Bran would end up convincing him somehow, and things would have gone so well Timmy would’ve found himself thanking him for the opportunity by the time their adventure was over.

He doesn’t think it’s gonna happen tonight, though. He truly hates tea. As far as drinking is concerned, he wants his beverages to have body. Warmed up water doesn’t qualify, no matter the flavor they manage to infuse in it.

“Well, if you did know, why did you take me here?” he groans as the kimono-wearing gal who welcomed them at the door silently leads them to a private paper-walled and tatami-floored room with a very short-legged table surrounded by pillows.

“Mmh,” Bran smiles without a worry in the world, “Sometimes people must be pushed out of their comfort zones. Led towards new experiences. For their personal growth.”

“You are a bad leader who doesn’t care what the people he’s leading want,” Timmy pouts and lets himself go on one of the pillows. As he thought, he’s too tall to sit comfortably – his knees are pressed heavily underneath the table and he can already feel his blood flow slowing down and his toes tingling. “I’m not voting for you when you candidate for the White House.”

Bran laughs, kneeling down next to him. “I care more for what my friends need, than for what they want,” he says. “How long has it been since you break up with Tana?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just answer the question, Anderson.”

“I dunno, two months?”

“Please.”

“Okay, two months and thirteen days.”

“...”

“And five hours, more or less.”

Bran nods knowingly. “My point exactly.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Stockridge,” the girl who led them here bows a little as she interrupts them. She’s not Japanese, but she’s dressed and made up for the part, and she looks good in the costume and wig, but not as good to be interesting to Timmy’s eyes, who already witnessed perfection in his ex girlfriend and aren’t prepared to see it in any other girl, not so soon, anyway. “Will you just need to drink some tea, or did you come for the full show?”

“The full show, tonight, Kumiko, thank you,” Bran nods, “And can I ask for Arashi for the service?” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” the girl nods too and, as silently as she walked in the room she walks out of it.

“I bet Kumiko and Arashi aren’t their real names,” Timmy snorts, rolling his eyes.

“What does it matter, if they put on a good show?” Bran smiles, and then hits Timmy’s shoulder with his own in an affectionate gesture. “Come on, mate. How many times did you have a night out since Tana left?”

Timmy sighs, resting both elbows against the table. “None,” he admits, shrugging lightly, “I just don’t feel like it.”

“That’s what I wanna help you with,” Bran smiles again, squeezing Timmy’s hand, “Tonight’s all about that.”

“I told you already and I will say it again,” Timmy snorts, “I hate tea.”

Bran’s smile widens up a little. “You’re not gonna hate who will be serving it to you, though.”

That’s when another girl enters into the room. She’s wearing a different kimono than the girl before, way heavier and more layered, richer in fabric, exquisitely sewn together. She wears a huge black wig, extremely long, arranged in a complicated half-updone hairstyle decorated with flowers and an adorable hand-carved mother-of-pearl comb. Two locks of ebony straight hair are left free on the front of the wig, framing her pale and doll-like face, sporting the fullest and sexiest lips Timmy has ever seen, and the deepest ice-colored eyes his own eyes ever met.

Most importantly, though, she’s not a girl. She’s a boy.

“Timmy, meet Arashi,” Bran introduces them, “Aka Alex Petersen.”

“Bran,” Alex sighs as he arranges the necessary items for the tea ceremony down on the table, “Don’t tell my name to customers. I have an alias for a reason.”

“Don’t worry, Alex, he’s not a regular customer,” Bran smiles, while Timmy follows the boy with his eyes, mesmerized by his every movement. He didn’t even know a person such as this existed, let alone thinking he could find him in a place like this. “He’s my dearest friend. He’ll keep your secret.”

“I bet he will, I’m not sure he’ll ever talk again. He looks brain dead.”

Bran finally turns to look at Timmy and laughs, patting his friend on his back to try and wake him up from his entranced state. “Tim, come on. I know he’s stunning, but he’s just a boy.”

“He turned my brain off for a second,” Timmy answers honestly as he tries and shake shock off himself. Alex chuckles, and inside Timmy’s brain there are only chimes for a moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

“If you must,” Alex says, shrugging lightly, those lips still curled in that adorable, amused smile, “But just one, I’ve been booked five times tonight and you’re the only extra I can fit in my schedule.”

“Okay,” Timmy nods, feeling the pressure mount. He had thought of a million questions in the span of a second. Why do you even need an alias to work here? Why don’t you want people to know your real name? And how did a person like you end up working in a place like this, anyway? But since he’s got just one question to ask, he lets his mouth run free, and he ends up asking the most ridiculous question of all. “Why did you choose Arashi as a nickname?”

The boy looks at him with his eyes wide open for a second, and then grins. He clearly wasn’t expecting the question, and Timmy feels pretty pleased with himself for surprising him. “Do you know what arashi means in Japanese?” he asks, and when Timmy shakes his head he answers his own question. “Storm,” he says, his grin getting wider, “And if you wanna know why I chose Storm as my name, you’ll have to come here again.”

Oh, he’s good, Timmy thinks, holding his breath altogether. He doesn’t even like tea, but he’s ready to drink that and only that for the rest of his life, starting tonight.


	12. Sweater weather

Ever since Alex transferred to New York to attend Parsons, he’s been living in Blaine’s loft in Broadway. It is an hour long bus drive going there and coming back home every day, but it’s completely worth it. The house is magnificent, the neighborhood is the best, there’s fashion and music at every corner, all the clubs look super cool and, most importantly, Timmy and him can meet whenever they want, and when they do they have the chance to share a house by themselves, which is something they’ve never done before, because back when they were kids, even though they slept in the same room, they were still living under Alex’s parents’ roof, and even when Alex came visiting in Lima there were still parents and siblings around all the times.

Sharing the loft is different. It’s warm, intimate. It feels like playing house, something Alex loves, even though he’d die before he admits it.

It feels particularly good on nights like this – November’s come and gone, it’s December now, soon it will be Christmas and it’s sweater weather outside. It’s warmer inside, but Timmy and him are still wearing their warmest pajamas as they cuddle down on the couch to watch some trash TV before going to sleep.

Timmy crunches on chocolate-covered pop corns while Kim K. blows the candles on her eightieth birthday’s cake, and Alex feels so good he smiles and closes his eyes, thinking he’d like to fall asleep like this, because this feels safe, like a cocoon of love he doesn’t ever wanna emerge from.

“Babe, are you sleepy?” Timmy whispers in his ears. His breath smells like chocolate. Alex follows that sweet-scented trace like a silent candy-flavored song, kissing him slowly on his lips. “Do you wanna go to bed? I could carry you.”

“No,” he whispers softly, shaking his head as he shifts against him, sliding underneath his body, “Why don’t you get closer, instead?”

Timmy tenses for a second, expectation mounting inside of him. Alex can feel it like electricity cackling underneath his skin. “Are you horny, sweets?” he asks in a whisper.

Alex licks his lips, spreading his legs underneath him. “I just wanna feel you,” he says. “Gently, now.”

And Timmy gently bites his chin. And then gently complies.


	13. Bonfire

Timmy loves to go camping with Alex and Neri’s family. He likes Neri, he’s a funny guy, full of strange and fascinating interests, and although he’s an awkward enough guy he’s always trying to make him feel at ease, never failing to speak in English with him, sometimes even with other people when he knows Timmy’s around, so Timmy can know what’s going on around him, what people are talking about.

He also loves Neri’s father, he’s a hero in Timmy’s mind, a man who raised four sons, among which three triplets, all by himself after his wife split. A man who, despite having to work two jobs to make ends meet, never failed to provide his family with all it could need, a man who already managed to put aside some extra money to help his eldest son pursue his grown-up dreams, whichever they might be (Neri himself isn’t sure about it yet). Neri’s father doesn’t speak a word of the English language, but always has the courtesy to express whatever he wants to express to Timmy with gestures and expressions, making sure he understands without forcing Italian upon him.

And then there’s the triplets, Lapo, Jacopo and Vieri – three names Timmy can’t pronounce for the life of him, but also three kids he adores. The triplets are constantly over-excited, as though they were perpetually overdosing on sugar; they’re tireless, cunning, adventurous, fearless to the point of idiocy. Timmy loves to spend time with them, they always manage to put him in absurd situations, sometimes even life-threatening ones, that always need his heroic intervention to be escaped, like that time they convinced him it was absolutely necessary to explore the cliff near Samson beach searching for the legendary crab of gold, and he ended up having to carry all three of them up his shoulders as they climbed to safety after having fallen into a rocky pit in between two massive sea stacks. 

Most importantly, though, all of them speak perfect English, being them children of a new, wonderful generation of kids who experience the world in the language the world speaks, instead of a language that’s only spoken in their backyard. With them, Timmy always feels at home – they speak of everything and whenever there’s a word he doesn’t understand or they don’t know yet they exchange the related information, enrich their respective vocabularies and keep talking like that never happened.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about the rest of Alex’s friends.

He doesn’t exactly _hate_ them – no, hate would be much too strong a word. He doesn’t understand them, though. They all speak Italian and refuse to speak English, even when he’s present among them. Some of them use the excuse of just being too embarrassed to speak a language different than their mother tongue in front of an English speaker, some other just don’t even try, or when they do they make a mockery of the language, as though they never studied a word of it. They end up cutting him off of all conversations, they don’t ask for his opinion because they wouldn’t be able to translate it even if they heard it – they’re a close circle, a circle he’s not allowed to be part of.

And Timmy’s too much of an independent soul to follow them around, begging them for an attention he would do nothing with, even if he had it.

So that’s what happened today – he’s been camping with Alex and Neri’s family for a week, now, but today Alex’s friends from his school came to visit, and after meeting and greeting them they all started talking in Italian and planning things to do, places to see, pictures to take pretending to be way cooler than they truly are, and Alex tried his best to involve him, but he’s still a kid, and he was washed away by the tide of his friends’ desire to spend time with him, and after a while Timmy just decided it would’ve been best to just leave them be.

The whole day passed, and now the camping staff have lit a bonfire, and that’s making Timmy homesick. He sits on the ground, together with a bunch of other people, some in small groups, some in pairs, some alone, just like him. He doesn’t feel like trying to start a conversation with any of them, though. Evenings are always quite colder than mornings around here, and he only wishes to warm himself up next to the fire, right now. He’ll decide what to do afterwards. Perhaps he’ll just go to sleep.

“I like bonfires,” Alex says suddenly, and when Timmy turns he finds him sitting next to him, his legs crossed, Native American style, and his eyes alight with the reflection of the flames. He’s got scratches on both knees, his hands and sneakers are covered in mud, his cheeks are bright pink and he smells lightly of sweat. Who is this kid, why has he been running around through the hills and the woods? The Alex he knows would never behave like this. He turns into a different person, when he’s with different people. “They make me think of summer, s’mores, making out with strangers...”

“Excuse me…?”

Alex laughs like a forest spirit, jingly and free. He stands on his scratched knee and, careless of how much it must burn, he moves closer to him, takes his head in his hands and kisses him.

The fire is close and it’s hot, but not as hot as his lips and the taste of his tongue.

When Alex parts from him, Timmy ends up looking at him, mesmerized by the curve of his smile. “Hello, stranger,” Alex whispers on his lips.

Suddenly, Timmy doesn’t care about his communication issues with Alex’s friends anymore. As long as he can keep communicating so well with him.


	14. Dry leaves

At first, Timmy isn’t even that sure about what he’s seen. Those flashes of blue looked like eyes, that pink line looked like a mouth, that pale oval looked like a face, but there’s nothing in the little mount of dry leaves at the roots of the maple tree. 

This is strange. He’s only four but he’s not stupid, and he definitely isn’t crazy. There was a kid, a kid his age, hiding under all those leaves. He just peekaboo’d for a second and smiled at him – he was fast, but Timmy saw him. He’s sure about it.

He stubbornly starts stomping on top of the leaves, frowning. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he says, like he’s been taught to say. The kid seems gone, though, and that’s frustrating. “Come out!” he says again, but no one answers, and the leaves don’t show another face again.

His father comes closer after a while, looking at him with worried eyes. “Is there an insect there, powder puff?”

“No.”

“Then why are you stomping around like that, love?”

Timmy thinks about the answer – he could tell dad about that kid. Dad would believe him – he always does. But whoever that kid was he surely disappeared now, because he stomped all over the whole bunch of leaves and no one came out, and if he told dad about it dad would insist to help him search for the boy again, and Timmy’s not sure he wants that. The kid was rude, he should’ve come out when Timmy first called him.

“I was just playing,” Timmy finally says, grabbing his dad’s long scarf by one of the ends and pulling at it, “Let’s go!”

Dad’s about to follow him, smiling that smile he always smiles when Timmy does something silly and he doesn’t wanna tell him he’s being silly, but then he stops suddenly, and Timmy ends up bonking against his long legs. “Are you sure you want to go?” dad says, pointing back towards the maple tree, “That kid seems to be looking for you.”

Timmy finally turns, following the direction his dad’s finger’s pointing towards, and spotting the kid, half-hiding behind the trunk of the tree. He smiles so much his face immediately starts hurting. “Ah!” he says, “There you are!”

Those clear blue eyes, those cherry pink lips, that pale, pale face. That’s the fairy kid he was chasing after.


	15. You can stay under my umbrella

“You can stay under my umbrella, you know?” Alex says. His voice is hard and he’s not even looking at him, and Timmy hates it. He hates it when they fight, because fighting means distance, it means anger, it means wasting time bickering over futile things that will matter nothing in hours, perhaps even minutes.

What was it this time? Which girl did Timmy accidentally brush against while he was dancing in the club? Which barman did Alex smile to while ordering his drink? What prompted the jealousy explosion that led them to fight and leave early, what made them walk in silence on the sidewalk, why are they alone in Rovezzano station under the pouring rain, waiting for a late train to get them back as close as possible to home, where Alex’s dad will come pick them up with his car, putting an end to this disastrous night?

“I don’t need to,” Timmy finally answers. The harshness in his voice matches Alex’s coldness and he hates it. He hates to speak like that and he hates the cacophonous sound their voices make when they beat like this instead of playing together like well tuned-in instruments. 

“Please,” Alex scoffs, shaking his head, “You’re soaking wet.”

“You’re right, I am. At this point, if I come under the umbrella now, it won’t make a difference, don’t you think? I’m drenched anyway.”

“Jesus-- you’re so stubborn.”

Now he remembers. It wasn’t his mistake, tonight, he didn’t unknowingly flirt with anyone – it was Alex. Was it the cute barista behind the counter or one of the boys on the dance floor? Did Alex know him? Did they joke and laugh together? Did their heads touch as they came closer to speak over the pounding music? Was that what sent Timmy into a rage?

What was the name of the guy? He can’t remember. Did he even have one?

“You make no sense,” Alex whispers softly – so softly Timmy barely hears him over the sound of the pouring rain. “So fucking jealous about things that mean absolutely nothing, even when you know that the moment you’ll go back home I will be like a dream you had one night. Pleasant, and already fading.”

“Don’t do that,” Timmy turns to look at him, angrily, “This has nothing to do with that. You liked him, I could see it from a thousand miles.” But could he? “You wanted to kiss him,” but did he?, “Admit it!”

Alex turns to look at him. The lights are dim, here, just a few streetlamps, few and far apart. The yellow lights barely make any light at all, especially with such a weather. Alex smiles at him, a smile so sad Timmy could’ve taken it for tears. 

He says something – but his voice is canceled out by the roaring of the coming train.


	16. Roast chestnuts

It’s pretty odd to be here at such a time – Timmy isn’t used to it. About Italy, he only knows the sun, the warm weather, the way the fields shine golden in the summer. He doesn’t know about the fall, how the land covers in browns and reds, how chilly the nights become and how sudden the change is, as though it happened overnight and you couldn’t notice it before, you just had to find yourself in it and deal.

Today, Alex insisted on going out. It rained all night and the air is literally wet. It’s incredibly hot under the sun, but super cold when the sun hides behind the big gray clouds that, like flying whales, pass through the sky, gently pushed forward by the winds.

Alex doesn’t like the cold. He doesn’t like the rain, he doesn’t like it when the air is so moist and he doesn’t like it when the sky is so gray you almost wonder if the sun ever existed at all or you simply dreamed about it. So, when he said he wanted to go out, Timmy didn’t question him, because it surely had to be something important, if he wanted to do it despite the bad weather.

As he lies down on the green grass covered in red leaves, though, and Alex pushes roasted chestnuts past his lips, one after the other, smiling gently at him and simply enjoying his company, new to him in this time of the year as the color of the Italian sky during this season is to him, he realizes that no, it wasn’t anything important. He just wanted to spend some time together by themselves.

Which is, perhaps, the most important thing of all.


	17. Momiji

“These are _beautiful_,” Timmy watches the trees with eyes so huge and wide he suddenly looks like the child Alex used to know when he was himself a child. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Seriously?” Alex chuckles, as he walks by his side through Minoo Park, “Never seen maple trees back at home?”

“Well, yeah, but not like these.”

“Timmy,” Alex laughs, “Maple trees are native to Ohio.”

Timmy frowns and pouts a little. “I’m telling you, not like these. These… they’re majestic. So tall. I’ve never seen maple trees this tall, they must be hundreds of years old.”

Alex smiles, rubbing his face against Timmy’s shoulder. Finally, he’s tall enough to be able to do that.

“Did you know that momijis start out their lives as shrubs? Then they become small trees, and then they keep growing. They can get up to 52 ft. Can you imagine something like that? Coming to life so small and growing up so much?”

Timmy smiles too, a natural, almost secret smile, as he wraps his arm around Alex’s shoulders, drawing him closer. “I can,” he says, “It happened to us.”

Alex allows himself something he rarely allows himself to do – he blushes.

Perhaps, he tells himself, in a hundred years or so they’ll be as tall as a momiji, and equally as majestic.


	18. Thunderstorm

It’s been 87 days since the end of the world. 87 days of summer.

The illness started to spread in the most populous areas of the continent, small sites in every nation, not just of the USA but of the whole world. Meningitis, the official medical authorities said, except meningitis doesn’t turn you into a rabid animal desperate for blood and guts. But no one knew people turned into _that_, in the beginning. Meningitis, all the news channels said, meningitis, they believed.

Then something happened – no one knows exactly what. He believes one of the infected must’ve escaped one of the facilities where he or she was held, and started spreading the illness everywhere in his run for his life. Everyone has a different theory, though. Timmy thinks it was done on purpose, for example. He thinks what happened is impossible – the systematical inability of thousands of different countries to contain a mortal virus no one knows the origin of. For something like that to happen, someone must’ve made it happen. On purpose.

Alex doesn’t believe that, personally, but it’s not the most far-fetched theory out there. They once met a man who firmly believed the illness had been brought upon humans by extraterrestrials, who were now watching the Earth from a safe distance as some sort of oversize Petri dish. _The Government did it_ sounds believable in comparison to that.

The fall of society wasn’t as gradual and slow as one would have expected it to be. It was more like one night they went to sleep and the morning after they woke up in a world of mayhem and despair, with sick people with their skin falling off their bones, screaming their heads off as they roamed the streets aching for fresh meat to swallow. Apparently, cannibalism is the only thing that can slow down the illness. You eat human flesh, you keep suffering like a motherfucker as your skin peels off yourself like potato skin after you boiled it, and your muscles keep putrefying underneath your flesh, turning your blood black, and your brain keeps filling up with liquid and small tumors, but a little bit slower, and at least you can be sure you will see the dawn of another day.

Thank God, the illness isn’t airborne, but it does spread with fluid exchange and skin-on-skin contact. If Timmy and him didn’t catch it, it’s probably just because for the whole week prior to this mess they were holed up in Blaine’s loft in New York, spending glued together the last few days before Alex had to start attending Parsons in September.

While the city crumbled to the ground outside, Alex and Timmy locked themselves up in the attic. They followed the news on the TV for as long as they kept airing. Then, soon enough all channels turned to static, and they turned the TV off. A few hours later the lights would’ve gone out in all of the city, but they still had food and water, so they remained there. They spoke with their parents from the very first day and up until cellphones kept working for about a week. The last message they received was from Blaine and Leo: we’re all fine, and we’re heading to the farm. Find a way to meet us there.

At first, they didn’t know what to do. They still had some food and the world outside seemed too scary to venture into without weapons. But they knew they ultimately had to make a decision. Their cellphones were dying and soon enough they’d be out of food and water, and by that time it would’ve been too late to go outside. So they swallowed down their fears, gathered up their courage, filled two backpacks with the few edible things they still had and unlocked the door.

On their way down, they scavenged all empty apartments for food and tools they could use outside. They found a couple of torches, matches, and one gun. Timmy found a baseball bat and told Alex he felt safer with that, so he could keep the gun if he wanted. Alex wanted. Very much he wanted.

Outside, the streets were almost empty. There were people hiding in fucking dumpsters, there were families holed up in small markets. Some of the places where people were settling down seemed pretty safe, but they couldn’t stop. They had a place to get to, and a hope hanging by a thread right ahead of them. The farm in Galena and, hopefully, their families, all members alive and well.

The first few days were a nightmare. They didn’t know what to do, how to defend themselves. They didn’t even know how to orient properly when they left the city. By that time, their cellphones were dead and they couldn’t even use GPS to understand where the fuck they were or where to go. Cities were scary because they were either filled with sick people, desperate for flesh, or fortresses of small groups who definitely weren’t ready to welcome and help passersby, let alone sharing food, water and ammunition with them. 

At least they had the weather on their side. Summer had his disadvantages, the sun was scorching hot, traveling the highway on foot seemed like a convoluted suicide attempt and one sting from a mosquito would mean certain death if it carried the sickness with it, but at least it was dry, there was no mud on the street and the road wasn’t constantly smothered in darkness.

Now the good season’s turning to an end, though. They still aren’t in Galena – they must’ve gotten lost, at some point down the road – and Alex’s starting to feel a little bit discouraged.

When it started sprinkling, an hour or so before sunset, Timmy immediately said it wouldn’t have been wise to stay on the road any longer. They found a gas station looking pretty wrecked but still covered with a roof and, luckily enough, completely empty, and they decided to take refuge there for the night.

It wasn’t hard to understand why there was no one inside, once they explored it. The place is a hole, there’s nothing inside, not even a chair to sit on. There are a few shelves in the shop area, but they’ve all been emptied out already. No food, no water. What they have will have to suffice for the night.

“I will hunt for something tomorrow morning,” Timmy says, unfolding the camping mat on the floor, “At least it’s dry in here. And we won’t need to light a fire – this place is so small it will warm up in ten seconds.”

Alex doesn’t answer. He tries to take a look at the surroundings through the window, but it’s impossible. There’s a literal waterfall washing down the windowpane. The world outside looks like what the ocean would look like if clams could look at it through their shells. “Where do you think we are?” he asks in the tiniest of voices, “Do you think we’ve gotten any closer?”

Timmy fetches a couple cans of tuna from his backpack and puts them down near the mattress, together with a small plastic bottle filled with water, and then sighs, getting closer to him. He hugs him from behind and leaves a tiny kiss on the curve of his neck. “We’re gonna get there, sweets, don’t worry.”

“You don’t know that,” Alex mutters, lowering his eyes, “You don’t even know where we are.”

Timmy tightens the hold of his arms around Alex’s waist, and presses his lips harder against his skin. “I’m with you,” he answers, “That’s where I am.”

“But I’m not in my dads’ farm yet, and that’s the whole problem,” Alex sighs and then turns into Timmy’s arms, facing him and holding his face in his hands. “I don’t wanna blame you, babe. I know you’re doing your best. We both are. But I’m scared. We can’t keep living off scavenged food forever, and I’m worried. What if something happened? What if they got sick? What if we eventually get there, but it’s already too late?”

Timmy holds his gaze and then leans in, brushing his lips against Alex’s in the softest of kisses. “I will still be with you, sweets,” he whispers on his mouth, “That’s all that matters to me. Wherever we are, whatever we face, as long as we’re together we can survive everything. I promise.”

Alex closes his eyes and lets himself go to the kiss. It’s warm and comforting, and even though he knows he can’t lightheartedly believe such a naive promise, he wants to, and for tonight, he thinks, he can afford to.


	19. Autumn in New York

Central Park is nice in all seasons, but in Timmy’s opinion it’s at its best in the fall. All the leaves turn different shades of yellow, red and brown, and they look so pretty he can’t ever stop taking close-up pictures of them with his phone. The lakes and the rivers shine of a different light, too, and even people walking or jogging around it look more aesthetically pleasing, wearing little hats and light jackets, instead of plain t-shirts sticking to their sweaty skins.

The prettiest part of it, however, is definitely the carousel. He remembers, back when he was a child, coming here with his father pretty often, and whenever they passed by he always wanted to ride it, at least once. His father never told him no. Every time he got him a ticket and patiently waited, watching him ride one of the horses, smiling at him and waving whenever he passed him by, until Timmy was satisfied, and he could hop off.

This is the first time he takes Alex here, since Alex’s transfer to New York. He’s getting settled in his father’s attic in Broadway, and the mere idea, though a little awkward, fills Timmy’s heart with joy.

Alex in New York, instead than in Florence, means that, whenever he feels like to, he can hop on a plane and be by his side after a one hour and a half flight, instead of a thirteen hours one. Alex in New York means that, whenever they want to be together, they can have a place of their own. It means that they can start building their life together, something Timmy didn’t even know he wanted, but now craves like oxygen and water.

When Alex saw the carousel and immediately started jumping and yelling he wanted to take a ride on it, Timmy laughed as he remembered his father, twenty years younger, getting the ticket for him and watching him ride from the safe space around it.

Then he got two tickets, and instead of watching from the sideline, he chose to ride alongside him.


	20. Fog

No one knows how or why, but people just live in the Fog, now. They call it like that, with a capital F, because it’s not like any common fog. It envelopes everything, only allowing you to see a few inches ahead of your nose. People have stopped using cars, buses, bikes, everything, really. It happened so suddenly for a while in the beginning people didn’t even know what to do. Alex remembers himself waking up and thinking the house probably must’ve caught fire, so dense and thick was the gray cloud surrounding him. But that cloud didn’t smell like smoke, there were no burnt ashes around him, only the vague, sickening scent of moisture and frost, the kind of scent you’d smell walking through the forest very early in the morning, minutes before dawn.

He remembers walking downstairs, glued to the wall. He couldn’t even see the steps he was putting his feet on, he could only hope he wouldn’t slip and luckily he arrived to ground floor in one piece.

His parents were there. He could hear them talk in distant whispers. But he couldn’t see them.

“Alex,” they said, “Alex. Where are you?”

The voices came in echoes all around him. He could see no movement in the mist. He crossed the hall and entered the kitchen and there was no one there. Or there was, he couldn’t know that. He just couldn’t see. “Dad, where are you?!” he asked. His parents answered from opposite corners of the place. “I’m here,” they both said. They sounded as far as the moon, from where he stood.

He hasn’t seen his parents since. He heard them a few times, in the first few days. Life went on, changed its rhythms. He couldn’t find the stairs anymore, he couldn’t find his bed, so he started sleeping on the ground. He couldn’t tell if it was night or day anymore, so he just started falling asleep whenever he was tired enough. He couldn’t find any food or water, but strangely enough he doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty any longer – it feels like the Fog is nourishing him, somehow. As though it likes to keep them all walking aimlessly around, traveling the world, alive but trapped, deprived of any physical urge that was the norm before.

He doesn’t pee. He doesn’t shit. The only thing that’s still here from before is sleep. But sleeping hours are shorter than it used to, and farther between. It’s been three years, now, since the Fog came, and in the last month he probably slept ten hours tops.

For the rest of the time, he walks, as the others do. Sometimes he feels them move in the mist. He never sees them, no, but he feels them, he feels their presence, he hears their voices whispering.

One time he came across a man – he was crying. “Why are you crying?” he asked.

The man stopped walking. He was close enough that Alex could hear his voice as though he was somehow whispering from across the road. Of course he couldn’t see him, though.

“I have lost my wife,” the man said. “I was blind before the Fog, but it restored my eyesight. And I was hoping if I could just find her I would have finally seen her face. Her beautiful face. But I can’t find her now. We traveled together for months, but then I lost her, and now I will never be able to see her.”

Alex had tried walking in the direction of the voice, curious about the man and his story. “How could you travel together for months?” he asked, “I lost my parents in a matter of days. At some point I just couldn’t hear them anymore and I haven’t heard from them since then. But you kept her close for months? How?”

“I’m used to listen closely, son,” the man answered with a sigh, “She kept wandering off, God knows where the Fog was leading her. I could tell her steps from the others, her breathing from the others, and every time she moved away I walked in her direction and I kept finding her back.” Then a short, silent, heartbreaking pause. “Until I didn’t.”

Alex stopped walking, looking down. He could barely see his own feet, he could see a circle of dark concrete around them, but the rest of the world faded away into the Fog, and so had his parents, and if he thought about them even the pain of losing them seemed to have faded – the Fog had absorbed it, consumed it. Yet, that man could still hurt. He thought about his lost wife and felt pain.

Ashamed at his own lack of pain, Alex had backed away a little. “What do you do, now?” he asked then.

The man scoffed. When he spoke again, his voice was sad and at the same time bitterly ironic. “What kind of a question is that, young man?” he said, “I keep searching.”

Months after, Alex had spoken briefly with a woman. She kept saying “I’m lost, I’m lost.” He could hear her coming from a distance, her whispering getting stronger with each step she took. “I’m lost,” she said.

Alex interrupted her repetitive monologue. “Where are you going?” he asked her.

The woman stopped for a second, then spoke again, uncertainly. “I’m not sure,” she said, and then, “I don’t know.”

“Right,” he nodded, “So… are you gonna keep walking?”

She stopped again. “People in the Fog ask the weirdest questions,” she commented then, starting to walk again, “What else would I be supposed to do?”

Conversations with people in the Fog are more or less always the same. They exchange greetings, secrets, opinions. The Fog seems thicker today. Right, it’s also a little darker. Have you heard anyone else recently? Did you hear someone cry? Did you hear someone laugh? What do laughter sound like again?

Alex speaks perhaps with one person every week. Sometimes a little longer passes. It’s hard to tell, time’s become meaningless, for the most part.

He has walked through this mist aimlessly and endlessly for an uncountable amount of time, without anything changing.

And now, suddenly, something changes.

In the beginning he doesn’t even understand what. His surroundings seem a little clearer – not that he can see anything, but the Fog seems to radiate with light and it takes him quite some time to understand that the light is coming from him.

He can see little luminescent particles run fast underneath his skin. They course through his veins, following their intricate design, making his skin glow softly. A milky white that doesn’t dissipate the Fog, but makes it a little whiter itself. Alex blinks, trying to understand why is this happening. He didn’t eat anything, he didn’t sleep, he didn’t touch anything or anyone, he just walked.

Perhaps he’s changing. Mutating. The Fog is making him evolve again.

He’s still thinking about it, trying to determine what might have caused it and what kind of consequences could this have, when he sees another glow in the distance. It’s warmer than his own, golden-tinted, and it’s the first thing he’s seen actually moving into the Fog since it appeared.

It starts out as a tiny spot in the mist, but it grows bigger quickly. And it bounces, up and down, like a jumping ball. Or like a running person.

Alex squints, trying to catch a glimpse of what’s coming closer, but the light is too fast. One second it’s still bouncing God knows how far, the next one it’s become a huge mass of light enveloping the body of a tall, blonde boy. Who sees him, but is running way too fast to stop in time.

They crash against one another. Their bodies clash and Alex falls with his ass on the ground, hitting the concrete with the small of his back. It fucking hurts and it’s the first time he feels pain in forever. It’s horrible, and amazingly pleasurable. It sends a dark shiver up his spine that turns quickly into excitement, and he’s almost sure he’s having a hard-on, right now, and he thinks to himself, what kind of messed up shit is that? I hit my back and I get hard about it? What is going on inside my head?

But he doesn’t have time to explore his thoughts any further. The boy is on all fours on top of him. He’s looking at him as though he couldn’t believe he existed. He’s heaving, his hair are a mess, his cheeks are red and he smells a little sweaty too.

He’s the most beautiful thing Alex has ever seen, and he feels drawn towards him like a moth to the light.

“Who are you?” the boy asks in between heavy, accelerated breaths. “I’ve seen your glow. Who-- what are you?”

“I’m Alex,” Alex simply answers, “And you’re glowing too. Why?”

The boy shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says, “I just started. And when I started, I saw you.” His voice breaks for a second, and Alex notices his eyes filling up with tears. “You’re the first person I see since this damn Fog came down. Shit, you look like an angel.”

Then, the boy starts sobbing and collapses on top of him, hugging him tightly, crying softly as he hides his face against the curve of his neck.

Alex swallows, raising both arms and locking them around the boy’s neck. “What is your name?” he asks.

The boy keeps sobbing, but he answers. “Timothy,” he says uncertainly, “Call me Timmy.”

“Nice to meet you, Timmy,” Alex says in a whisper, breathing against his skin.

He’s warm and soft, and Alex likes the way he smell. Human and alive, the opposite of the Fog.

He has no idea what happened, or why the Fog let them find each other. But they were each other’s beacon of light, and now they’re together.

Whatever the Fog has in store for them, it just started.


	21. Night witches

Ever since he was a child, Timmy has been raised to fear the witches. They’re wretches, wraiths, they come at night, straddling old brooms, phantom horses, monstrous three-headed dogs, and they steal children from their cradles and puppies from their pillows, they steal chickens and lambs from farms and they sacrifice them – all young things, all pure things – during their Sabbath. They use their blood to paint their naked bodies and the blood, combined with their chants and the moonlight, makes them young and beautiful again, makes them temptresses, so they hop of their flying passages once more and again their storm the villages, flying through the windows, passing through the walls as though incorporeal, and they petrify the wives to lay with their husbands, and once they’ve collected their essence, they morph into bat-winged men and they make the husbands’ slumber deeper to possess and impregnate the wives, and then, nine months later, a child with completely black eyes is born and they steal it away from the arms of the terrified mother, and take it back to their hidden village in the forest, raising the baby up to be a blood-thirsty, cruel monster who will destroy everything it touches and taint every human soul it’ll come in contact with.

Timmy heard those stories and terror was all he knew. So when his parents told him not to stay out too late past sundown, he made sure he was home way before that. And when his parents told him to stay away from old people, especially if he had never seen them before, and even more especially if they were trying to offer him something to eat, he made sure to run whenever he saw one, and never speak to them, never even let them close.

But then he grew up, and the stories changed, and Timmy began suspecting something might be off about them. Suddenly, the witches weren’t old and ugly anymore. Suddenly they didn’t need children to sacrifice on their wicked altars anymore. Suddenly they could be young and beautiful, they could be the fascinating red-haired daughter of the gypsy community just passing by the village with their colorful caravan decorated with veils and chimes, and they could be the handsome young son of the local clairvoyant, especially if both kids tended to try and steal kisses from him, if they invited him, separately and together, to spend time down at the river, if they felt no shame about showing him their naked bodies, if they were thirsty for the touch of his fingers.

That’s when Timmy started to suspect witches probably didn’t truly exist. That they were just his parents’ way of trying to keep him out of danger as a child and out of trouble as a teenager.

Which is why it’s so surprising, now, to be face to face with a real one.

He swallows as the boy in front of him – probably his age, though his eyes, so clear and yet so profound, do a great job at hiding his true years – holds both hands up in the air, fingers spread, palms towards him. There’s a vague greenish light coming off his skin, extending in a transparent trail that reaches his body and envelopes him, keeping him paralyzed.

He was sure he would have found a thief in the hen house. Perhaps a fox.

Certainly not this boy, of a demonic beauty, dressed in full black, covered by an equally black hood, caught in an attempt to steal their only black chicken and with the corpse of one of their backyard cats in the bag.

“Who are you?” he whispers through gritting teeth, forcing his mouth to move despite the witch’s magic keeping him still.

“You don’t know me,” the witch says, blue eyes flashing in the darkness of the night, his ebony hair barely visible underneath the hood, “And you will forget me, as soon as you fall asleep.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“My magic doesn’t care about that,” the witches teeth flash in the dark, and they’re pointy, dangerous, like well-sharpened knives. “You will fall asleep, because I said so, and you will forget me. And the chicken. And the cat.”

“I could never forget Wolfbane,” Timmy frowns, “He used to bite my toes in my sleep when I was a little baby.”

The boy smiles again and snaps the chicken’s neck broken, putting it in the bag, together with Wolfbane’s body. Then he walks closer to him, and as he does he raises both hands and then lowers them in a fluid movement, and without even knowing why Timmy finds himself lying with his back on the ground. 

“You will forget,” the boy says again, his hands moving in swirls before Timmy’s eyes, the magical light turning from green to purple, “You will forget everything. As I say.”

“Fine...” Timmy swallows as he feels his eyelid growing heavier and heavier, “Then tell me your name. If I’m gonna forget anyway.”

The boy smirks and whispers. “Alex,” he says, “But you’re going to forget.”

Several hours later, way past dawn, Timmy wakes up lying down in the hen house, with the chicken pecking the ground all around him.

He remembers nothing of the black chicken, and he remembers nothing of ever having had a cat named Wolfbane who used to nibble at his toes while he slept when he was a child.

But he remembers the boy’s name. And his face. And be it the last thing he does with his life, he is going to find the witch again.


	22. Equinox

All boys and girls who want to become men and women have to go out during the night of the equinox, when the summer dies and the fall begins, just as their childhood dies and new challenges and responsibilities force them to grow up.

On those nights, the children of the village are told, there’s always a beast waiting for them in the deep of the forest. Nature, their only mother, knows when their time has come. She knows when to send them their challenge. And so they can be sure that, on the night they choose, might be this year or the next, or the one before, the beast she chose for them will be waiting for them.

It will be waiting to slaughter them, or to be slaughtered by them.

That is how children are raised in the village, and that’s all they know. They know only their homes and the forest surrounding them, they know their hunting grounds and their little orchards, and that’s everything there is to life for them. Being born, being a child, then growing up and becoming providers. Becoming hunters or farmers, and then building a family and raise more children who will have to grow up and become hunters or farmers themselves, in the never-ending cycle they call life.

That is what Timmy knows too. He was ready for his hunt last year, already, but his parents didn’t agree. Wait one more year, they told him. You’re only twelve. You have a right to one more year of childhood. Stay home. Don’t hunt. The beast Mother Nature gave birth to for you will be waiting for you next year.

So Timmy had stayed home, but now a year has passed, and he’s more ready than ever, as ready as he’ll ever be. He wants to go out, he wants to hunt. He hears the beast calling him and his blood is boiling at that call. 

Tonight, he goes out. Tonight, he hunts.

The moon is leading his steps, setting him on a straight path. He follows a scent he can’t give a body to, something he’s never smelled before, something dangerous, something threatening, something that feels like it’s out for him, for his blood. No doubt the beast for him.

At some point he’s at a crossroad. It’s a new one, he’s never seen before. On the right, there’s the hunting path he knows so well, the path the hunters taught him and all the other children about. On the left, a new path that seems to be drawn in frost on the grass. It sparkles a vague milky light and there’s some sort of vibrating echo to it. He feels drawn towards it, even though he’s pretty sure that echo is the sound of danger.

But after all, isn’t danger what he’s after, tonight? Isn’t he hunting his beast, his own personal nightmare?

He takes the frost path in the grass and dives into the deep of the forest. 

The trees seem to whisper around him, they call his name, and something’s growling in the darkness, some monster, maybe, certainly an animal. He looks back, past his shoulder, and the path has disappeared, melted in the ground. There’s no going back, now. He can only march forward, and he does, until he comes out into a clearing he’s never seen before. It’s a strange place, wide and circular, there’s no grass on the ground, as though the earth itself had been burnt. But there are huge stones sitting vertically all around, drawing an irregular circle around a stone altar.

Timmy can see it. He can see everything because, at the very center of the stones circle, right behind the altar itself, there’s a boy, and that boy is glowing. He’s wearing a black robe decorated with golden embroidery, strange swirls and symbols Timmy has never seen.

The boy is chanting, and every time he finishes up a verse of the song he’s singing, in a language Timmy doesn’t understand, the next verse is sung a little louder. And his skin glows a little stronger.

Mesmerized by the sight, Timmy watches the boy, whose slim, short body doesn’t fill up the robe he’s wearing, start drawing strange symbols in the air with his fingers. Every time he draws a symbol, it appears, glowing white, on one of the stones set in a circle around him. And every symbol coming alive with light fills Timmy’s soul with a sense of dread and anticipation.

Is he here to stop this ritual? Is this boy the beast Mother Nature created for him?

He believes yes. And before he can have any doubt about it, he steps out of his hiding and faces the kid, running towards him, his spear in hand, yelling the hunting yell of his people. “You’re dead, sorcerer!” he screams.

The boy notices him, gasps and quickly draws something in the air. The symbol comes alive, it fires up and then turns into a fire ball that moves at the speed of light towards Timmy.

He stops running and gasps himself, trying to hide behind his crossed forearms, but that’s fire, and that’s magic, and he’s defenseless against it, and he’s surely going to burn before becoming a man, and that’s another thing he knows about life, that living means you’re constantly risking to die, and today, he thinks, that risk turns into reality for him.

But the fireball passes. It dissipates around him in a cloud of smoke, and Timmy lowers his arms and stares at the boy, shocked. The air surrounding him isn’t even warm.

“What?” the boy whispers between heavy breaths, “My magic… didn’t even touch you? What does it mean-- it had never happened before.”

Timmy’s heaving too, and his heart is beating so hard and fast his chest hurts. “Who are you?” he asks in a wheeze, and the boy standing in front of him frowns.

“I’m a Child of the Forest,” he says, his blue eyes glowing like lakewater does sometimes when fireflies hover too close to it, “Who are you?”

Your hunter, Timmy thinks, swallowing hard. But he can’t utter a word, and so, as the forest seems to start singing the song of the night all around them, he chooses to stay silent.


End file.
